Siege of Jerusalem (70)

The Siege of Jerusalem occurred from 14 April to 8 September 70 AD during the First Jewish-Roman War. The Roman general Titus, son of emperor Vespasian, laid siege to the Judean capital of Jerusalem with an army of 70,000 troops, and they massacred its 30,000-strong garrison after a long siege and heavy resistance from the Zealots. The Romans retaliated against the rebels by burning down the Second Temple and destroying the city, and the Jewish rebels were reduced to a few isolated pockets after Jerusalem's fall.

Siege
On 14 April 70 AD, just before the Jewish holy season of Passover, the Roman general Titus surrounded the Judean capital of Jerusalem with Legio V Macedonica, Legio XII Fulminata, and Legio XV Apollinaris to the west and Legio X Fretensis on the Mount of Olives to the east. Jerusalem was thronged with over a million people who had come to celebrate Passover, and they were trapped inside of the city, which had ample supplies of water in its wells and cisterns, but inadequate food supplies.

By May, the Romans had breached the Third Wall to the north of the Jaffa Gate, and they took the Second Wall shortly afterwards, leaving the defneders in possession of the Second Temple and the upper and lower portions of the city. The Jewish defenders in the city, already divided into various rival factions, were weakened when Sicarii leader John of Gischala had rival commander Eleazar ben Simon murdered, and the rivalry between John and Simon bar Giora was only put on hold when the Roman siege engineers began to erect ramparts. Titus then had a wall built to starve out the population more effectively. After several failed attempts to breach or scale the walls of the Antonia Fortress, the Romans launched a night attack in late July and overwhelmed the sleeping defenders. Titus sent the Jewish historian Josephus to negotiate the surrender of the remaining Jews, but the Jews instead wounded Josephus with an arrow, launched a sortie, and nearly captured Titus.

However, the Romans attacked the Second Temple from the Antonia Fortress, with a Roman soldier throwing a burning stick onto one of the Temple's walls. Titus had originally sought to convert the Second Temple into a pagan temple, but the fire spread quickly and was soon out of control, and it was destroyed at the end of August. The flames spread into the residential sections of the city, and Roman soldiers pillaged and burned as much of the city as they could, indiscriminately slaughtering the city's inhabitants. The Roman legions quickly crushed the remaining Jewish resistance, and Herod's Palace fell on 7 September, with the city falling completely under Roman control by 8 September.

After the army had no more people left to slay or plunder, Titus ordered that his men should demolish the entire city and the Temple, except for the walls of Phasaelus, Hippicus, and Mariamne. The Romans literally levelled the city, even cutting down the trees of the city's once-beautiful gardens. 1.1 million Jewish civilians died as the result of violence and famine, with many of them being Jewish pilgrims from as far as Babylon and Egypt who had been trapped in the chaotic siege while celebrating Passover. 97,000 Jews were enslaved, and thousands became gladiators and died in the arena, those under 17 were sold into servitude, and many others were forced to build the Forum of Peace and the Colosseum. Titus celebrated his triumphant return to Rome by parading around the Menorah and the Shulchan table (which carried bread which was offered to God]), objects which had only been seen by the High Priests in the Second Temple. Titus refused to accept a wreath of victory, saying that his victory had merely served as an instrument of divine wrath. Many Jews in despair converted to [[paganism or to Christianity after the destruction of the Temple; likewise, many Jewish Christians distanced themselves from Judaism, viewing the destruction of the Temple as punishment for the rejection of Jesus. Jews annually fast on Tisha B'Av to remember the city's destruction.